Pages

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

How the U.S. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico:

DD: Borderland Beat has published many articles about what has become known as the Allende Massacre, probably more articles than any other publication. One of the reasons for that deafening silence that came out of Allende and surrounding area for several years after the Allende Massacre was the fear the residents felt 24/7 of the cartel known as the Zetas. The Zeta's held an iron fist over the local media in controlling what it published or broadcast; either through owning it, intimidating the owners/reporters or just out right bribery. In fact they pretty much controlled the state from the top down. Fortunately for BB we had (and still do have) 2 reporters with close ties to Coahuila because of Chivis having her offices here and only about 70 miles from Allende, and DD making his home about 40 miles from Allende. In the last couple of years more and more answers as to "who and how many were killed", who were the killers, why they were killed have come forth and more facts will be known shortly because of the attention Allende Massacre is now finally getting. Read Chivis' story posted yesterday on BB about the criminal complaint filed against Coahuila public officials (both present and past) in the International Criminal Court (ICC). This story by Ginger Thompson and ProPublica is a long story that is the result of a year long investigation interviewing the people involved in the Allende Massacre and letting them tell the story in their own words; In effect giving an oral history from surviving family members, from criminal perpetrators, from law enforcement on both sides of the Rio Grand, and the reasons for the inaction and silence of the elected officials. This story answers a lot of questions and will be used as evidence if the criminal complaint presented last last week to the ICC goes to trial.

The inside story of a cartel’s deadly assault on a Mexican town near the Texas border — and the U.S. drug operation that sparked it.

Photo from Borderland Beat Archives

"We have testimony from people who say they participated in the crime. They described some 50 trucks arriving in Allende, carrying people connected to the cartel. They broke into houses, they looted them and burned them. Afterward, they kidnapped the people who lived in those houses and took them to a ranch just outside of Allende.First they killed them. They put them inside a storage shed filled with hay. They doused them with fuel and lit them on fire, feeding the flames for hours and hours." José Juan MoralesInvestigative Director for the Disappeared in the Coahuila State Prosecutor’s Office

This massive home, with a swimming pool, vaulted foyer, and outdoor
cooking gazebo, covers an entire block. It belonged to a former Zetas
operative named José Luis Garza, Jr. The Zetas believed—mistakenly, it
turns out—that Garza was cooperating with the DEA, and they went after
him and anyone connected to him. Nearly 20 members of his family are
dead or missing, including his father. Garza managed to escape to the
United States, where he was eventually arrested and agreed to cooperate
with American authorities in exchange for leniency.

There’s no missing the signs that something unspeakable happened in Allende, a quiet ranching town of about 23,000, just a 40-minute drive from Eagle Pass, Texas. Entire blocks of some of the town’s busiest streets lie in ruins. Once garish mansions are now crumbling shells, with gaping holes in the walls, charred ceilings, cracked marble countertops and toppled columns. Strewn among the rubble are tattered, mud-covered remnants of lives torn apart: shoes, wedding invitations, medications, television sets, toys.

In March 2011 gunmen from the Zetas cartel, one of the most violent drug trafficking organizations in the world, swept through Allende and nearby towns like a flash flood, demolishing homes and businesses and kidnapping and killing dozens, possibly hundreds, of men, women and children.

The destruction and disappearances went on in fits and starts for weeks. Only a few of the victims’ relatives — mostly those who didn’t live in Allende or had fled — dared to seek help. “I would like to make clear that Allende looks like a war zone,” reads one missing person report. “Most people who I questioned about my relatives responded that I shouldn’t go on looking for them because outsiders were not wanted, and were disappeared.”

But unlike most places in Mexico that have been ravaged by the drug war, what happened in Allende didn’t have its origins in Mexico. It began in the United States, when the Drug Enforcement Administration scored an unexpected coup. An agent persuaded a high-level Zetas operative to hand over the trackable cellphone identification numbers for two of the cartel’s most wanted kingpins, Miguel Ángel Treviño and his ​brother Omar.

Then the DEA took a gamble. It shared the intelligence with a Mexican federal police unit that has long had problems with leaks — even though its members had been trained and vetted by the DEA. Almost immediately, the Treviños learned they’d been betrayed. The brothers set out to exact vengeance against the presumed snitches, their families and anyone remotely connected to them.

Their savagery in Allende was particularly surprising because the Treviños not only did business there — moving tens of millions of dollars in drugs and guns through the area each month — they’d also made it their home.

For years after the massacre, Mexican authorities made only desultory efforts to investigate. They erected a monument in Allende to honor the victims without fully determining their fates or punishing those responsible. American authorities eventually helped Mexico capture the Treviños but never acknowledged the devastating cost. In Allende, people suffered mostly in silence, too afraid to talk publicly.

A year ago ProPublica and National Geographic set out to piece together what happened in this town in the state of Coahuila — to let those who bore the brunt of the attack, and those who played roles in triggering it, tell the story in their own words. They did so often at great personal risk. Voices like these have rarely been heard during the drug war:

Local officials who abandoned their posts; families preyed upon by both the cartel and their own neighbors; cartel operatives who cooperated with the DEA and saw their friends and families slaughtered; the U.S. prosecutor who oversaw the case; and the DEA agent who led the investigation and who, like most people in this story, has family ties on both sides of the border

When pressed about his role, the agent, Richard Martinez slumped in his chair, his eyes welling with tears. “How did I feel about the information being compromised? I’d rather not say, to be honest with you. I’d kind of like to leave it at that. I’d rather not say.” ***********************************************************************

The Massacre

As sundown approached on Friday, March 18, 2011, gunmen from the Zetas cartel began pouring into Allende.

"We were eating at Los Compadres, and two guys came in. We could tell they weren’t from here. They looked different. They were kids — 18 to 20 years old. They ordered 50 hamburgers to go. That’s when we figured something was going on, and we decided we’d better get home."

Martín Márquez Hot dog vendor

"Things began happening in the evening. Armed men began arriving. They were going house to house, looking for the people who had done them wrong. At 11 at night there was no traffic on the streets. There was no movement of any kind."

"My husband, Everardo, usually came home between 7 and 7:30 at night. I was waiting for him. Time passed — 7, 7:30, 8, 9. I began calling him. The phone was not in service. I thought maybe he was at his mother’s house and his battery had died. I called his mother. She told me that she hadn’t seen him and that maybe he was out with friends. But that didn’t make sense to me. He would have called. So I went out looking for him.

The atmosphere felt tense. It was nine at night, which was not very late, not on a Friday. The town was completely deserted."

A few miles outside of town, the gunmen descended on several neighboring ranches along a dimly lit two-lane highway. The properties belonged to one of Allende’s oldest clans, the Garzas. The family mostly raised livestock and did odd contracting jobs, including coal mining. But according to family members, some of them also worked for the cartel.

Now those connections were proving deadly. Among those the Zetas suspected of being a snitch — wrongly it turns out — was José Luis Garza, Jr., a relatively low-level cartel operative, whose father, Luis, owned one of the ranches. It was payday, and several workers had gone to the ranch to pick up their money. When the gunmen showed up, they rounded up everyone they could find and took them hostage. After nightfall, flames began rising from one of the ranch’s large cinder-block storage sheds. The Zetas had begun burning the bodies of some of those they’d killed.

Many victims were
brought to a ranch outside Allende, owned by the Garza family. The
cartel allegedly turned this storage shed, which held equipment and
animal feed, into an incinerator for the bodies. Ashes, a rosary, and
what appear to be belt buckles lie on the charred concrete floor.

"My husband, Rodolfo, arrived. He told me, ‘My head is killing me. I’m going to take a shower.’ He was completely covered in soot because he was opening a new coal mine. After a while his phone started ringing. I thought he had gone to lie down, but he came out of the bedroom, fully dressed, and he looked me in the eye in a way I had never seen before.

‘Don’t leave the house,’ he told me. ‘There’s something going on. I don’t know what it is. But don’t leave the house. I’ll be back.’

After a while, Rodolfo called me. ‘Get out of the house,’ he said. ‘And don’t go in our truck.’ He told me to ask my cousin to take our daughter, Sofía, and me to my mother’s house.

His uncle Luis’s ranch was on fire. And there were a lot of armed men standing outside the gate. His sister wasn’t answering her phone. His father wasn’t answering either. He sent one of his workers, Pilo, to the gate to see what was going on. Pilo had been in the military. The gunmen opened the gate. Pilo went in. But he never came out.

Rodolfo was inconsolable. He couldn’t find his parents. He couldn’t find his sister. And now his best worker was gone. He told me he was going to try to sneak onto the ranch through the back.

A few minutes later, he called again. He was speaking so softly I could barely hear him. He told me to get out of Allende. ‘Tell your cousin to take you to Eagle Pass. Don’t pack. Just go."’

Evaristo Treviño Former fire chief, no relation to Zetas leaders

"Officers under my command responded to reports of a fire at one of the Garza ranches. We’re talking about less than three kilometers away from Allende. It appeared that the Garza family was having some kind of gathering. Among the first responders was a group of firefighters with a backup engine.

They noticed there were certain people connected to criminal organizations, who told them, in vulgar terms and at gunpoint, to withdraw. They said there were going to be numerous incidents. We were going to get numerous emergency calls about gunshots, fires and things like that. They told us we were not authorized to respond.

In my capacity as fire chief, what I did was to advise my boss, who in this case was the mayor. I told him that we were facing an impossible situation and that the only thing we could do was to stand down, out of fear of the threats we faced. There were too many armed men. We were afraid for our lives. We couldn’t fight bullets with water".

From Allende the gunmen moved north along the dry, flat landscape, rounding up people as they covered the 35 miles to the city of Piedras Negras, a grimy sprawl of assembly factories on the Rio Grande. The attackers drove many of their victims to one of the Garza ranches, including Gerardo Heath, a 15-year-old high school football player, and Edgar Ávila, a 36-year-old factory engineer. Neither had anything to do with the cartel or with those the cartel believed were working with the DEA. They just happened to be in the way.

"I was packing because we were leaving for San Antonio at 5 the next morning to go to a football game. Gerardo was playing, so we needed to be there early. Gerardo and his sister were horsing around outside. I looked out the window and saw two of Gerardo’s friends drive up. They were our neighbors.

Gerardo came inside and asked if he could go out with his friends. I said, ‘No, Gerardo. We’ve got to pack.’ Next thing I knew, Gerardo had on the clothes we had bought him for his birthday. He had just turned 15. The shirt was blue, and it matched his eyes. He told me, ‘Come on, Mom. I won’t be late.’

I said, ‘Fine, Gerardo, don’t be late.’At around 10 that night, my husband called Gerardo’s cellphone to see what time he’d be coming home. Gerardo didn’t answer. My husband called again. No answer.

A while later someone knocked on our door. It was a couple of friends of Gerardo’s from school. They looked terrified. I asked them, ‘What’s the matter? Where’s Gerardo?’

The boys said, ‘They took him.’I asked, ‘What are you talking about? Who took him?’The boys said they saw Gerardo and our neighbors in front of the neighbors’ house. A truck came, carrying a lot of men with guns. The men forced the neighbors and Gerardo into the truck and drove away. The boys told me they didn’t recognize the men. And since they had weapons, the boys didn’t dare say anything.

Within minutes, we called the mayor of Piedras Negras. He was at a wedding. He said that he felt terrible about what had happened to us, but there wasn’t anything he could do. Not a single police car came."

Gerardo Heath, a 15-year-old high school football player from Piedras Negras, was one of the victims. He was hanging out with friends when the Zetas took him, two friends, and their parents away. They are presumed dead. The number Heath wore on his team jersey, 55, is plastered on business windows and car bumpers around his hometown, a symbol of outrage over his killing. Like many of those killed during the rampage, Heath had nothing to do with the drug trade.

Claudia Sánchez visits the crypt that memorializes her 15-year-old son,
Gerardo Heath, who was kidnapped and killed in the attack. Authorities
never recovered his remains. Instead they
provided Sánchez with an urn filled with dirt and ashes from the
Luis Garza ranch.

"I was at work, waiting for the judge to sign off on two sentencing reports I had written, when Edgar called to say his friend Toño had invited him over to watch a soccer match. I was pregnant, and by the time I got home, I was super tired. Edgar had fed our daughter and given her a bath. I asked him to pick up some empanadas for me before he went out. He brought them to me and gave me a kiss.

It wasn’t until I woke up at two in the morning that I noticed Edgar wasn’t home. None of my calls went through. I said to myself, ‘How strange that he hasn’t called.’ Edgar always called.

I sat in an armchair the rest of the night and waited for him until about 6:30 a.m. Then I called my sister. I told her he hadn’t come home. So she came over, and wearing my pajamas, I went with her and my brother-in-law to Toño’s house. There was no one there, but there were signs of a struggle. Everything had been thrown around."

The next morning, Saturday, March 19, the gunmen summoned several heavy-equipment operators and ordered them to tear down dozens of houses and businesses across the region. Many of the properties were in busy, well-to-do neighborhoods within sight or earshot not only of passersby but also of government offices, police stations and military outposts. The gunmen invited townspeople to take whatever they wanted, triggering a free-for-all of looting.

Government records obtained by ProPublica and National Geographic indicate that state emergency response authorities were deluged that Saturday with some 250 calls from people reporting general disorder, fires, fights and home invasions throughout the region. But numerous people interviewed said no one came to help.

Within view of
passersby and not far from the police station, the fire department, and a
military outpost, the Zetas demolished houses and businesses in
Allende. The man who was mayor during the massacre still lives across
the street from this house. He initially reported that he hadn’t seen
any evidence of violence.

"Saturday is when everything began. Houses began exploding. People began breaking in and looting, and all I could think about was where Everardo might be. All day Saturday I spent searching and calling people to ask, ‘What have you heard?’

One person told me, ‘I saw armed men.’ Another told me, ‘The warehouses are still on fire. The smoke is really black, as if someone’s burning tires. It’s black, scary smoke.’I got a call from a man who worked with my husband. My husband raised fighting cocks. In this region cockfighting is very popular. He worked for José Luis Garza, but not full time. In the mornings and in the afternoons, he would go to the ranch to feed the animals.The man told me, ‘There’s something bad going on at the ranch. We don’t know what’s happened to all the people.’ I asked, ‘What do you mean? What people?’He said that several of the men who worked with my husband had not arrived home the previous night. One was a tractor driver. Another watered the fields. None had arrived home.I asked him, ‘OK, what do we do? Let’s go look for them.’ He said, ‘Don’t go anywhere near there, or else they’ll take you too.The image of one thing that happened is still with me: people breaking into supply stores and carrying away sacks of animal feed, parrots and cages. They were taking lamps and dining room sets.The image that sticks with me most is of a tiny motorcycle with a woman riding on the back. She had turned a bedsheet into a sack. She had stuffed it full of things and was carrying it like Santa Claus, with one hand. And with the other she was holding a lamp. The motorcycle looked like it was going to tip over, but they looked happy with all the stuff they had taken."Márquez Hot dog vendor

"I had two friends who collected and sold junk. They heard that the ranch was burning and that the owners had left, so they went — a father and son — to see if there was anything worth taking. They said they saw a freezer off the highway, a big one. And they wanted to take it. But it was really heavy. So the father told the son, ‘Let’s dump what’s inside.’ They opened it and saw two bodies. They ran away." Evaristo Rodríguez A veterinarian and Allende’s deputy mayor at the time""All the members of the town council met, not in formal session, but we all gathered — the council members, the public security director. There were a lot of questions. The main one was, ‘What’s happening?’ But what everyone really wanted to know was why. We already knew there had been gunfire and that there were cases of disappearances and deaths.There were a lot of questions about what we should do, but no one wanted to take charge. One of the council members even said, ‘Let’s just get out of here, before something happens to us.’I didn’t want to be a hero, but I thought at the very least we should stay in our offices so that people would see that we had not abandoned them. But all the staff wanted to leave. Everyone was focused on their own families.With all that we were going through, we distrusted everyone. We realized that there was a two-sided government, the official one and the criminal one that was in charge. We knew that the police were controlled by criminals.The director of public security told us, ‘These are their affairs.’ He didn’t say any more. He didn’t need to. I understood: ‘Don’t investigate or intervene, or else."

Lira Victim’s wife "The last phone call with Rodolfo was at a quarter to noon. He sounded exhausted. He still hadn’t heard anything from his parents. I told him he had done everything he could for them, and now it was time to think about Sofía and me. I begged him to come meet us in Eagle Pass. He said, ‘OK. I’m on my way.’I never heard from him again."Sánchez Victim’s mother"There’s no playbook to tell you what to do when someone steals your child. There is no first step. You go crazy. You want to run, but you don’t know where. You want to scream, but you don’t know whether anyone is listening. One of my cousins suggested I put it on Facebook. So I wrote, ‘Give me back my son. If anyone knows where he is, bring him back to me."’Vela Victim’s wife"How can I explain how I felt? It was as if they had kidnapped me that day too. In some ways I died. They killed the future we had, the plans, the dreams, the illusions, the peace, everything. At that time I had lived longer with Edgar than I had lived without him. Just think about that. On top of that I was pregnant, so I couldn’t even think of taking any kind of sedative. I had to try to stay composed, very calm, but I’d come home and feel like the house was caving in on me. I couldn’t find a place to sit down without feeling like the walls were falling. I couldn’t make sense of this. Despite being a lawyer, I couldn’t make sense of what had happened."

Several months earlier, in the Dallas suburbs, the DEA had launched Operation Too Legit to Quit after some surprising busts. In one, police had found $802,000, vacuum-packed and hidden in the gas tank of a pickup. The driver said he worked for a guy he knew only as “El Diablo,” the Devil.After more arrests, DEA Agent Richard Martinez and Assistant U.S. Attorney Ernest Gozalez determined that El Diablo was 30-year-old Jose Vasquez, Jr., a Dallas native who’d started selling drugs in high school and was now the leading Zetas cocaine distributor in east Texas, moving truckloads of drugs, guns, and money each month.

After more arrests, DEA Agent Richard Martinez and Assistant U.S. Attorney Ernest Gonzalez determined that El Diablo was 30-year-old Jose Vasquez, Jr., a Dallas native who’d started selling drugs in high school and was now the leading Zetas cocaine distributor in east Texas, moving truckloads of drugs, guns and money each month.

Jose Vasquez, Jr., was once the Zetas cartel’s leading cocaine
distributor in east Texas. As part of a deal to save his wife and mother
from prosecution, he provided the cell phone PIN numbers of the Zetas
leaders to the DEA. Vasquez said he warned the DEA not to share them
with Mexican authorities, because the cartel had informants in the
government.

As they prepared to arrest him, Vasquez slipped across the border to Allende, where he sought protection from members of the cartel’s inner circle.

But Martinez and Gonzalez saw an opportunity in his escape. If they could persuade Vasquez to cooperate, it would give them rare access to the senior ranks of the notoriously impenetrable cartel and a chance to capture its leaders, particularly the Treviño brothers, who had killed their way onto the list of the DEA’s top targets. Miguel Ángel Treviño was known as Z-40, Omar as Z-42.

What Martinez wanted were the trackable PINs, or personal identification numbers, of the Treviños’ BlackBerry phones. Vasquez had left the agent plenty of leverage. His wife and mother were still living in Texas.

My wife calls me at like 6 o’clock in the morning. She tells me, ‘Hey, the house is surrounded.’
I said, ‘What do you mean, it’s surrounded?’
She said, ‘Yeah, there’s a lot of cops outside.’
I said, ‘Well, listen, they’re probably going to arrest you. Let me call [my lawyer]. Just make sure you don’t tell them nothing. Just try to relax. We’ll get you out on bond.’
I told her, ‘Break the phones.’ We had toilets in the house that flush real strong, so she broke them and flushed the phones down the toilet.
Then Richard [Martinez] called me from there. He put me on speakerphone, so my wife could hear.
He told me he was going to arrest her. I thought he was bluffing, so I said, ‘Do what you got to do.’

At the beginning all we wanted was for Jose to turn himself in and cooperate, so that he could tell us the structure of the Zetas organization. I think that would have appeased us at that point because we really didn’t know how close — how near — he was to Miguel and Omar. We didn’t know — until he started saying who he was talking to, who he was seeing — what they were doing. That’s when our perspective of what we could do, and how, began to change. We started to try to come up with ideas about how to capture them.

When Jose didn’t turn himself in, and we saw that he was willing to sacrifice his wife, we knew we needed to turn the screws even harder, or put more leverage on him.
Richard tells him, ‘Your mom’s going to be charged.'

I told him, ‘Man, listen, man, I’ll go to the border right now, walk over and turn myself in. I won’t fight you for nothing. I’ll sign all your seizure papers. Give me a life sentence. Throw away the key. I don’t care. But leave my wife alone. Leave my mother alone. He’s like, ‘Listen, the only way your wife doesn’t do no jail time or your mom doesn’t do no jail time is if you cooperate with us.’I said, ‘Richard, I don’t want to cooperate, man. There’s going to be a lot of murders that come behind this.’He was like, ‘All I have to tell you is if you don’t cooperate, they’re going to do time with you.’I asked Richard, ‘What do you want?’

I wanted the numbers. Our hope was to get the Zetas leadership. I figured that those numbers gave us the best chance to get them. I knew Jose was in a position to help us.

When it comes down to it, a lot of these guys flee the United States. But if you grew up here, it’s still America, the best country in the world. You still want to eventually come back to America. If your family is here, you still want to be around them. I thought that once Jose realized that the jig was up, he was going to do whatever he had to do to help us.

I was going to push him to do that while I had the opportunity.

This is kind of getting off subject, but I remember going to Mexico as a kid. My mother is from Mexico — Monterrey. I’ve been to Coahuila. I’ve got family in Coahuila. You can’t go back there right now. It’s sad to say. But you can’t go down these rural roads. I would love for my family to go back there, but they can’t.

I saw these numbers as a key. They’re very significant. I saw it as an opportunity to stop the Miguel and Omar Treviño reign.

"It was something personal, absolutely. It was important because of my background, because of my own personal heritage, and of knowing what [the Zetas] were doing to Mexico.

I spent my summers with my grandparents in Mexico. They had farms and ranches. I enjoyed my youth in Mexico. This organization was destroying all that with their greed and their violence."

To avoid capture, the Zetas had their closest lieutenant in Coahuila, Mario Alfonso “Poncho” Cuéllar, provide them new cellphones every three or four weeks. Cuéllar assigned the job of buying the phones to his right-hand man, Héctor Moreno.

Under pressure to get the phones’ PINs, Vasquez turned to Moreno, using a little leverage of his own. It was Moreno’s brother, Gilberto, who had been caught driving the truck with $802,000 in the gas tank. Facing 20 years in prison, Gilberto had confessed that he was working for the Zetas and that the cash belonged to the Treviño brothers.

Vasquez arranged for his lawyer in Dallas to represent Gilberto and promised not to let anyone else in the cartel know about Gilberto’s incriminating statements. Moreno repaid the favor by agreeing to get Vasquez the numbers. But when the time came, Moreno had second thoughts.

The Zetas controlled everything. They did whatever they wanted. When soldiers were going to come to the area, someone from the military would notify us in advance.

Sometimes planeloads of federal police would arrive, with 200 officers. But we’d get a call a week ahead of time: ‘Are you stashing anything in such and such a house?’We’d say, ‘No, there’s nothing there.’They’d say, ‘Good, because there is a search warrant for that location, and agents are going to arrive on Thursday.’

The government told us everything. So I knew that if the government got those numbers, the Zetas would find out.

"The day Héctor was supposed to give me the numbers, I called him. He said, ‘I got the numbers, but I threw them out.’

I said, ‘What happened? You said you were going to give them to me.’

He told me, ‘These numbers could get us in a lot of trouble, so I threw them out the window.’

I told him, ‘I have these guys waiting for me. I told them I was going to give them the numbers. What about my family?’

After a while, I talked him into driving back to the road where he threw the numbers out. We drove up and down that road for like an hour or two, until we found the slip of paper.

I got all the numbers — for 40, and 42, and all of them. I didn’t know what they were going to do with them. I thought they were going to try to wiretap them or something like that. I never thought they were going to send the numbers back to Mexico. I told them not to do that, because it was going to get a lot of people killed. Not only that, I was still there. I was still hanging around those people. They said they wouldn’t. Richard told me I had to trust him"

The Takeover

Lawlessness was not unfamiliar to people in Allende. Because of its proximity to the U.S. border — residents do their weekend shopping in Texas — there had long been families engaged in smuggling who lived quietly within their communities. But by 2007 the Zetas moved in with the money and muscle of a hostile occupation. They vanquished rivals, took control of critical government agencies, turned local police into their henchmen and transformed the region into a haven for all kinds of criminality.
Then the traffickers embedded themselves in society — buying businesses, staging galas, recruiting from or marrying into local families.

Carlos Osuna Retired businessman and organizer for the National Action Party

"The violence that exploded here in 2011 didn’t just happen from one day to the next. There had already been drug trafficking for a long time. And for a long time, there was only one boss, named Vicente Lafuente Guereca. Everyone knew who he was and what he did for a living. But there was mutual respect. He respected society, and society respected him. And in that spirit, life carried on with a certain normalcy. Drugs passed through, but society didn’t intervene. And Lafuente didn’t interfere with the government or with civil society. There were no kidnappings. There was nothing like that.But that peaceful coexistence ended when Lafuente was murdered". Moreno Former Zetas operative

"When the Zetas arrived, they recruited everyone to work for them. All the narcos in the area had to work for the Zetas. There were no more independent groups. Before they came, Coahuila had been a kind of free market. Anyone who wanted to could operate there. The Tejas [a gang based in Nuevo Laredo] were there. Chapo [Joaquín Guzmán, head of the Sinaloa cartel] was there. It was wide open. But the Zetas arrived, and they killed Omar Rubio, of the Tejas. They killed Vicente Lafuente. They killed a few other important people. And everyone who was left joined them.My family had been in the area for a long time. On my mother’s side, I had relatives who ran funeral homes and hardware stores. On my father’s side, they owned ranches. But the truth is, none of that offered as much money as drug trafficking. That’s why I got involved.

Above: Youth league football practice in Allende. American football is popular due to the proximity to Texas. Below: A family celebrates a quinceañera, an elaborate birthday thrown for Mexican girls when they turn 15. The birthday girl grew up outside Fort Worth, Texas. But her father is originally from the Allende area, and he took the family back there for the occasion. Many families in Allende have relatives on both side of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Ángel Humberto García Medical doctor and former legislator "When I was a member of Congress, ranchers and farmers from Allende began coming to see me. They were terrified because their lives were being threatened. They said that criminals were taking over their properties. Some of them told me that the only way they could get onto their own land was if they asked for permission from the criminals. One of them was José Piña. He told me he had gone to the police for help, and they told him there was nothing they could do. There was a military checkpoint a few meters away from his property, so I asked him, ‘What about the soldiers?’ He told me, ‘I’ve told the soldiers, and — nothing.’ I said, ‘What do you mean, nothing?’ He said, ‘They won’t do anything.’

He said [the Zetas] had offered him money for his ranch, but he wouldn’t take it. He had complained to the mayor and the governor, but he couldn’t get anyone to listen. So he came to me, and he gave me a handwritten letter for the president.Two days later, Mr. Piña was dead"
****************************************************The Mexican newspaper El Universal
published a story about the 2009 murder. It reported that Piña’s body,
found behind a Catholic elementary school, had been “riddled with
bullets.” The
story said the rancher’s tongue had been cut out, his fingers cut
off and one of them was stuffed inside his mouth. The killers attached a
written missive: “We don’t mess with you. Don’t mess with us.”
***************************************************Moreno Former Zetas operative ;

"The Zetas killed Piña because his ranch was set on the Río Bravo
[Rio Grande]. 40 and 42 used to pass through there every day. They would
leave his gates open, so his cattle would escape. He complained about
it to the military. The soldiers told the
Zetas. And because of that they went and killed him."

Ricardo Treviño Guevara A former mayor of Allende:

One night, [the Zetas] beat my son. It was really bad. He had
bruises all over his body. His face was swollen. They had put a machine
gun to his head and threatened to shoot him. He had been drinking with
his friends. They stopped at a gas station.
[The Zetas] beat him there, in front of the police.

I went to the police and asked, ‘Why in the hell did you let
those assholes beat my son?’ I took the keys to their patrol cars. I
told them, ‘What good is it to have officers on the streets who won’t
protect people? They told me, ‘They’d have killed us if we’d tried to stop them.

’Later I went out and had too much to drink. As I walked to my
car, I saw some police officers nearby. I shouted at them, ‘Tell the
[Zetas] boss I want to see him.

’The next day, I was running errands in town, and I saw a line of
cars heading toward me. The cars pulled in front of me and stopped. ‘The
boss wants to speak with you.’ They walked me over to one of the cars. I
got in, next to the driver. It was 42.
He said, ‘What can I do for you, Mr. Mayor?’ I told him,

‘Listen, how would you feel if someone beat the shit out of your kid? Wouldn’t that piss you off?’ ‘Of course it would,’ he said.‘Well I’m pissed,’ I said. ‘You guys think that you’re so tough
because you’ve got weapons, and that there’s nothing we can do about it.
You might be right. But as for my family, if you want to touch anyone,
you come to me. If you want to kill someone,
kill me.

’He said, ‘I’m not going to kill you. You are not my enemy, as
long as you mind your affairs and let us handle ours. But please keep
your son home at night. If he wants to drink with his friends, let them
do that at home. The night belongs to us.’

Fernando Purón mayor of Piedras Negras

"There was a point at which we started to see signs that [the
Zetas] had begun a kind of hegemonic takeover of all commercial
activities. In addition to trafficking drugs and weapons, they began to
start companies and businesses in the service sector,
in real estate, in construction.

For example, they began operating money exchange houses at the
border, to exchange dollars for pesos. They staged concerts and dances.
They opened restaurants, bars and red-light districts. They got into
buying and selling used cars. Then they turned
to bigger businesses. They began building shopping malls, hotels
and casinos.

And they began living here. After a while, their children began attending schools with your children.

Don’t think they were living on the outskirts in some ranch. They
lived right here in front of city hall. In fact, from this balcony I
can point to one of the houses where they lived.

Everyone was afraid of them. The Zetas were stronger than the
government. You understand? They were economically stronger. They were
better organized. They were better armed. Everyone was afraid of them,
and those who weren’t afraid had been bought
by them."

Osuna Retired businessman; The biggest impact on society was on our sense of freedom. I
could no longer go out to my ranch, or even to the corner without fear
that someone would mistake me for someone else, and beat me, or worse.
That loss was what we felt most.

And then, even if we weren’t involved with [the cartel], they
would establish ties to our families. One of them would marry a cousin,
or the daughter of a close friend, and suddenly they’re at the same
parties, or holiday dinners.

At the beginning we simply kept quiet out of fear. But
unfortunately, drug trafficking brings a lot of money with it. And we
all like money. So these guys show up with it, and they start spreading
it around, and before you know it they’re members
of the Lions Club.

It wasn’t hard to spot. We are a small community. Everyone knows
one another’s income levels. So when someone is living on a thousand
pesos one day, and 3 million pesos the next, you have to say, wait a
minute, something’s going on there. Unfortunately,
we all accepted it.

In October 2015 Mexican authorities erected a monument to honor the
victims of the massacre. Some residents said they saw it as an affront,
particularly because the government hadn’t made any real effort to
investigate the massacre for years. Although
the concrete obelisk sits on a busy traffic circle at the entrance
of Allende, few people stop to visit.

While authorities erected a monument in honor of those who were
kidnapped and killed during the Zetas’ rampage, the more striking
reminders of the violence are the dozens of houses and businesses that
still lie in ruins.

The LeakAbout three weeks after Vasquez provided the PIN numbers to the DEA, the cartel’s leaders got word that one of their own had betrayed
them and launched a frenzy of retribution.

Law enforcement sources close to the case said that after Martinez gave the intelligence to his superior, it was passed to a DEA supervisor in Mexico City. He, in turn, shared it with a
Mexican federal police unit that had been specially created to conduct operations under the DEA’s direction.

Most members of the Sensitive Investigative Unit receive mandatory
training and vetting by the DEA. But several current and former DEA
agents said despite that vetting, the unit has long had a poor record of
keeping information out of the hands of criminals

One of the most glaring problems, they say, is that Mexico doesn’t
allow the DEA to scrutinize the unit’s supervisors in the same way as it
does the unit’s members. Two law enforcement officials close to the
Zetas case said their own inquiries revealed
that a supervisor in the SIU was responsible. Former senior members
of the Mexican Federal Police who worked closely with the unit did not
respond to multiple requests for interviews.

Earlier this year, one of the unit’s supervisors, Iván Reyes
Arzate, turned himself in to U.S. federal authorities to face charges of
sharing information about the DEA’s investigations with drug
traffickers. It’s unclear if Reyes was the source of the
leak in the Allende case.

As for the Zetas, it wasn’t hard for
them to identify who within the cartel may have betrayed them since very
few people had access to their PIN numbers.

"How did I know there was trouble? Because I was holding 596 kilos
of cocaine for the cartel, and 40 sent a guy to take it back from me.
That’s something I had seen them do many times before. Every time 40
planned to kill someone in the organization,
he would first make sure he had taken back their merchandise.

He sent me a photo of himself, with drawings of frogs all over
it. At the bottom of the photo he wrote, ‘Look, the damned frogs had me
shot.’ ‘Frogs’ is their word for snitches.I called 40 and asked him, ‘Hey, what’s this about?’ He didn’t
answer. All he said was, ‘I need to see you. Where are you going to be
later?’I told him I was going to be at the horse track. But I didn’t go.
I called a couple of my guys, and I told them to go see what was going
on. After they got there, they called me and said, ‘You’re screwed.’

One
of 40’s guys was there, cursing my name
because I hadn’t shown up. That’s when I knew I had to leave.I began calling my friends, warning them to get out too.
Unfortunately, none of them listened to me. When 40 couldn’t find me, he
went after them.

"Héctor [Moreno]
called me and told me that all hell was breaking loose. He asked me
what I had done with the numbers. I told him that I had turned them in
to the DEA.

He told me, ‘Well
something’s going on. Somehow the Zetas found out.

I called Richard [Martinez] and said, ‘What’d you do with the numbers?’ He said, ‘Man, they went to Mexico.’I said, ‘Man, how did you let that happen? I told you what would happen if those numbers came to Mexico.

’Richard said, ‘Man, it wasn’t me. It wasn’t my call. It was above
me. The boss did it. They sent the numbers to Mexico, thinking they had
a friend over there they could trust.’"

"Richard called and said we got the numbers, but they’ve been sent
to Mexico. I said, ‘What?’ We hadn’t had a meeting to discuss how to
handle them. I got angry. I think Richard was of the same mindset. He
didn’t want it done that way either, but it
was out of his hands. He said, ‘It’s the bosses. It’s management.’

I knew well that there were issues with secrecy in Mexico. When
information was passed on previous occasions, it always seemed that
something would happen.

We had been trying forever to find the best way to locate the
Treviños. What would be the best mechanism where we could definitively
say, ‘This is where they are at this time.’ We knew they moved around a
lot. This was one of those opportunities where
you could do that. It was something we had struggled for a long
time to achieve. We had put pressure on people to cooperate. We had
arrested wives and mothers, and had all these great seizures.

It was a great opportunity. But it was squandered because it wasn’t done correctly, and it got compromised."

Vasquez,
Moreno, Cuéllar and Garza, whose family’s ranch
was the scene of many of the killings, fled to the United States when the
massacre began and agreed to cooperate with U.S. law enforcement in exchange
for leniency. Their horrifying accounts of what was going on in Allende made
American authorities aware of what they had unleashed.

During
the massacre, gunmen ordered heavy-equipment operators to destroy
houses and businesses across the region. This house, owned by a former
Zetas operative who fled during the massacre, was also burned, leaving a
psychedelic pattern on the walls.

Six years after the massacre, almost no effort has been made to clean up
the scenes of the crimes. Entire blocks still lie in ruins. Strewn in
the rubble are remnants of lives that came to a violent end.

Cuéllar Convicted Zetas operative;

" I remember my first meeting with the DEA. I was telling them what was happening in Coahuila, about all the violence. I remember Ernest [Gonzalez]
getting up from the table, going outside
and confronting one of the DEA bosses. He started shouting at him.
He said something like, ‘Did you hear what’s going on? All this because
you sent those numbers to Mexico.’

";I told him this was bullshit. Things should have never happened
this way. We had information that could have helped us capture these
guys, but because of the way it was handled, the whole thing had
unraveled. And now it was a goddamned mess."

The Aftermath

For years
state and federal authorities in Mexico didn’t appear to make a real
effort to delve into the attack. Mexican federal authorities said their
predecessors didn’t investigate because
the killings couldn’t be linked to organized crime, but acknowledged
that they also have not investigated.

Estimates of the number of dead and missing vary wildly between the
official count, 28, and the one from victims associations, about 300.
ProPublica and National Geographic have identified about 60 people whose
deaths or disappearances have been linked
by relatives, friends, victims’ support groups, court files or news
reports to the Zetas siege that year.

Relatives were left on their own to try to piece together what had happened and to rebuild their lives.

In May 2011 Héctor Reynaldo Pérez filed a missing person report
with state authorities. His sister, who had married a Garza, had
disappeared along with her entire family. Less than a year later, Pérez
himself disappeared. A report
by independent human rights investigators at the Colegio de México
found evidence that Pérez was last seen in the custody of Allende police
officers.

After that, few victims’ relatives dared to turn to authorities for
help, much less talk publicly about their ordeal. Several moved to the
United States.

No family lost more members than the Garzas. Nearly 20 are believed
dead, including 81-year-old Olivia Martínez de la Torre and her
7-month-old great-grandson, Mauricio Espinoza.

The baby’s siblings,
Andrea and Arturo Espinoza, 5 and 3 at the time,
turned up at a Piedras Negras orphanage after their parents had been
killed.

Their paternal grandmother, Elvira Espinoza, a hotel housekeeper in San Antonio, went with her husband to fetch them.

Elvira Espinoza Hotel housekeeper and grandmother of the Espinoza children:

"Andrea says they drove to a place where the houses didn’t have
roofs. She said the men took her mother, her grandmother, and her
great-grandmother out of the car. They told the children, ‘Stay here.
We’re just going to talk.’

The men kept them there and told them to stay quiet. No crying. Andrea said she changed the baby’s diapers and made his bottles.

She doesn’t remember how many days they were there before the men
took her, Arturo and Mauricio to Piedras Negras. Andrea said the men
dropped her and Arturo in a park, but they took Mauricio with them.She said that she begged them to leave the baby with her. But the
men told her that the baby was too little and cried too much to leave
him there with them.

Andrea blames herself for what happened to him. She says, ‘If I had been stronger, Mauricio would still be with us.(dd;she was 5 at the time)’

"I filed a missing person report. The investigator told me it
would be confidential. He promised to keep my identity anonymous.

Then a
few days later I received a threat. Someone called my cellphone and
told me that if I went forward with the complaint,
the same thing that happened to my husband would happen to the
rest of my family. My mother and father still lived in Allende. I would
have never forgiven myself if something had happened to them.

I called the investigator that same day. I told him he had lied
to me about keeping my name a secret, and that I wanted to withdraw my
complaint.

I also went to the Mexican Consulate in San Antonio. You won’t
believe what they said. They blamed me. They said, ‘Ah, you come crying
now that your husband is missing. All this time, you knew what kind of
business your relatives were in. But you
didn’t seem to mind until you were personally affected.’
"I never asked the government for anything again."********************************************
Three years after the Zetas’ rampage, Coahuila’s governor, Rubén
Moreira, announced that state officials would investigate what happened
in Allende. With great fanfare, officials launched a “mega-operation”
to collect evidence and find the truth.

Victims’ families and
Allende residents say it has been little more than a publicity stunt.
The inquiry has
produced no conclusive DNA results, nor a final tally of the dead and missing.

Fewer than a dozen suspects have been arrested — most of them former
local police and cartel grunts who followed orders. No one has been
charged with murder.

In 2015 the Coahuila State Prosecutors’ Office
began a series of meetings with relatives of
those victims whom investigators believed — based on confessions — were dead.

They handed out death certificates, despite having no bodies, that listed such causes of death
as “neurogenic shock” and “total combustion due to direct exposure to fire.

"When they gave me the news, my body went limp. They told me
Gerardo had been taken to a ranch and killed. Something inside told me
that it was true. But I asked, ‘Are you sure it was him?’

They told me that the witnesses had said that among the victims
there was a family with three boys, and that one of the boys was my son.
They said he had started to cry. It was stressing them out, so they
killed him. That’s when I lost it. How could
anyone kill a 15-year-old boy who’s afraid, and crying?

The officials asked me what I wanted. I told them I wanted his
remains. They said that would be difficult, since my son was incinerated
along with a lot of other people. Instead they brought me ashes and
dirt from the place where he died. I asked
them if I could go there. They told me it wasn’t safe. I told them
I wanted to go anyway. So they escorted us in a caravan.

I was struck by how close it was. I thought to myself, Gerardo
was so strong that if only he could have gotten away and made it to the
highway, he would have easily managed to make it

"The prosecutor and his team were supposed to arrive in the
afternoon, but they didn’t arrive until that night. We waited more than
five hours for them. And when they finally got there, all they offered
were symbolic gestures.

They told us they were
going to hand out death certificates, with information based on
the statements that had come from the people who had been arrested. And
they had small boxes of dirt for any relatives who wanted them. That was
it.

I told them, ‘Hold on. I didn’t wait here for six hours to have
you come and offer me a death certificate and this box. We’re human. How
can you possibly think this is the right way to help bring us closure? I
want to know what you learned and where
you learned it. Where is the person who killed [my husband]? How
did they kill him?’

They said that the answers might be hard to hear. They didn’t
want to be cruel. I told them nothing could be worse than the 20,000
things I had already imagined on my own.

How would the suspects know my husband’s name, if they weren’t
from here? We had believed all this time that the people who did this
had been brought from another state.

In the end we learned they were people from here. The monsters we
thought had come from who knows where were monsters who had lived among
us, and who were supposed to protect us."

Vela Victim’s wife;"They gave me a death certificate dated the 19th of March 2011 —
the day after he disappeared. The only thing I asked them was whether
they were certain they were right.

They told me that the forensic
specialists had not been able to test the fragments
that had been recovered, so they couldn’t be 100 percent sure. But
they told me they were confident that Edgar was there at the time of
the massacre. I think it’s because they had witness statements.

I still don’t know what to believe. I hadn’t heard anything from
them in five years; then, out of nowhere, they ask me to believe the
case is solved.

I bet that if you were able to get a look at my husband’s case file, you’d see it’s empty.

Still, with the death certificate I began to make the changes
that were long overdue. I moved out of our house. I left with only our
clothes and [my daughter’s] bedroom furniture. All of Edgar’s clothes
are still back there, hanging in the closet,
exactly as he left them.

I could finally speak openly with my daughter about what had
happened. I hadn’t been able to tell her that her father was dead,
because, what if he returned?

I think in some ways she had already
figured it out."

Miguel Ángel Treviño, who was known as Z-40, was arrested in 2013, in an
operation led by the Mexican Marines. The DEA claims credit for helping
Mexico make the arrest, but would not discuss what steps were taken to
investigate the 2011 intelligence leak that led to the massacre in
Allende.

Omar Treviño, who was known as Z-42, was captured in 2015. He and his
brother, Miguel Ángel, are suspected of ordering the 2011 kidnappings
and killings in and around Allende, after learning that someone in the
cartel was providing information to the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration.

The Treviño brothers were eventually captured, Miguel in 2013 and Omar
in 2015, in operations led by Mexican marines. Since then, the cartel’s
hold on Coahuila has weakened, and nightlife has returned to Allende,
though many residents remain emotionally
scarred and leery of strangers. They fixate on reports of
drug-related violence, worrying that the Treviños are exerting control
over the drug trade from prison.

The DEA takes credit for the captures but won’t say what, if
anything, it did to investigate how the information about the PIN
numbers wound up in the hands of the Zetas. Terrance Cole, Martinez’s
supervisor in Dallas, and Paul Knierim, then a DEA supervisor
in Mexico City who served as a liaison with the DEA-trained Mexican
federal police unit, declined to be interviewed.

Knierim has since been promoted and is now the agency’s deputy chief of operations in Washington.

But Martinez
agreed to speak, briefly choking up when asked about his role in the
massacre. Named agent of the year in 2011, he is now battling kidney
cancer, and so far aggressive treatment
has failed.

Russ Baer, a DEA spokesman, twice flew from Washington,
D.C., to Texas to monitor interviews with Martinez and another agent
there.

As Martinez spoke, Baer interrupted to stress that the top Zetas
were in prison and the agency’s investigation
was ultimately a success.

"Obviously I’m devastated by it. You know that in this line of
work, there are going to be consequences. The potential for someone to
get killed is always there. But to actually be involved in something
like that and not being able to do anything is
devastating.

The goal was an honorable goal: to try to get these guys arrested
and put in jail so that they would stop killing people. But at that
point in the investigation, it had the opposite effect.

I had heard about the brutality of Miguel and Omar Treviño and
the senseless violence they had perpetrated in the past, but it didn’t
register with me that it could be that way; that anybody that was even
remotely linked to you, even if it was outside
the drug trade, would be picked up and killed. That just didn’t
seem possible. It probably should have. But it didn’t, until it was
happening, until it happened."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ernest Gonzalez was working with the DEA on
Operation Too Legit to Quit and helped obtain the trackable cell phone
identification numbers for the leaders of the Zetas cartel. He said he
was furious—and devastated—when he learned that the DEA’s handling of
that intelligence played a role in triggering the massacre in Allend

"I got the numbers. I passed them to our people. As far as that, I don’t have anything to do with anything else.

We all knew the numbers were dangerous. If I just sat on a number
— what am I going to do with them here in Dallas?

The wiretap is not as
easy as people say it is. I have to have probable cause.

To me, I got the numbers, and I passed them on. That’s my job.

I can’t speak for the agency, other than I just know what I did. I did all I could do.

I gave it a shot. That’s the way I felt. I did the best I could
do that day. I had the opportunity to get the intelligence and pass it
on. I got it. I can’t very well go into Mexico and try to handle it
myself.

Russ Baer DEA spokesman:

" Listen to this guy. He’s got family that’s from Mexico. He talked
about health problems. He’s talking about this almost tearing up at
times because he’s so emotionally invested in this.

This is a guy who
started by watching the glamour of ‘Miami Vice,’
dedicated his life as a public servant to work for DEA and
ultimately took down the Zetas cartel. That personal story, it doesn’t
get much better than that. It sends chills up my spine.

As far as what happened in Mexico and the aftermath of the
compromise, the DEA’s official position is: That’s squarely on Omar and
Miguel Treviño. They were killing people before that happened, and they
killed people after the numbers were passed.
DEA did our job to target them and to try to focus and dedicate
our resources to put them out of business. We were eventually successful
in that regard.

Our hearts go out to those families. They’re victims,
unfortunately, of the violence perpetrated by the Treviño brothers and
the Zetas. But this is not a story where the DEA has blood on its hands."

Residents of Allende, their faces painted to look like skeletons,
participate in Day of the Dead celebrations. The tradition, in which
families pay tribute to relatives who have died, is not as common in
northern Mexico as it is elsewhere. A couple
of years ago, authorities in Allende began organizing public
events to mark the occasion. Dozens of people now converge on cemeteries
to clean and decorate their relatives’ graves and wish them well in the
afterlife.

ABOUT THIS STORY

ProPublica, an independent, nonprofit, investigative newsroom, and
National Geographicteamed up on this story. Ginger
Thompson, a ProPublica senior reporter, spent months researching the
massacre, interviewing sources on all sides, and writing the article.
Kirsten Luce photographed it for
National Geographic. Additional reporting was done by Alejandra Xanic, a freelance journalist in Mexico.

Ginger Thompson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, has covered Mexico for years. She was previously Mexico City bureau chief for the
New York Times and the
Baltimore Sun. Photographer
Kirsten Luce has documented life along the U.S.-Mexico border for 10 years.

10:00 do not assign blame to all of the US just because you do not understand.This article says very clearly, top brass passed the information to their mexican counterparts, and they were in cahoots with los zetas, don't be a pendejo, there are a few DEA agents and many mexican criminals involved, specially some people in the US government pampers and pays millions of dollars to.It does not involve all of the mexican or all of the americans,Learn to read, güey.

Chiva, all the names are needed and what part they played, don't be part of the silent complicity, we will read.--It has been said many times that the Allende victims were killed as a revenge for 2 guys escaping to tejas with 5 million dollars of zetas money, and I believed that until some guy posted about the phone numbers the DEA passed on to the mexican narco-government, it has been about 6 years of silent complicity and too much already, FECAL WAS PRESIDENT, GENARCO GARCIA LUNA Was SSP, and the moreiros had been the narco-governors in charge but epn had been working his ass off overtime for the presidency on top of his accomplices.

United States created the opium and marijuana problem in Sinaloa, before WW2 it was only the Chinese and a few locals who grew ampola and marijuana. During WW2 when the japanese overran the opium fields in asia, the supply of opium to make morphine to give to US troops fighting in WW2 dried up. USA sent people to Sinaloa to teach the locals how to grow opium poppies for opium gum to make morphine, and marijuana to make hemp for ropes for the army and navy. When WW2 finished and the USA once again had access to superior grade opium from the far east, it stopped the contracts with the Sinaloenses to grow it, and declared it once again illegal.

The Sinaloenses who grew vegetables before WW2, who had gotten wealthy during the war were never going to go back to growing vegetables. So in many ways, the USA did create the drug related cartel problems in Mexico, however unpalatable that may be for the people of the USA, and their insatiable demand for drugs today, as they take the majority of drugs supplied by Mexico, in relation to drugs exported to Europe, Australasia and the far east, keeps that alive. Its simple economic theory, the Oligarchs theory of a few, supply and demand.

Given that, now the monster is out of the cage, if the US legalized drugs of all types, and the demand dropped to zero for the cartels, they would simply turn to their other income sources to make up the difference. These other sources create much more harm to the local population, kidnapping, extortion, petrolium theft, counterfeiting. This is really a double edged sword for Mexico. The cartels will not settle for having less money, they will simply turn to other ways to earn the same income from nefarious activities.

Otis, I've been saying this for years. Los Zetas and CT are the perfect examples. They didn't have great coke connections, so they turned to local terror. Hell, now they're involved in illegal logging, human trafficking, livestock and grain theft, train robbery. It's gonna get ugly.

@7:56 OtisReading your comment on the legalization of drugs and the impact it will have on Mexico is somewhat hard to comprehend. You state that other means of criminal activities will take its place, extortion , petroleum theft and kidnappings? Of course other means of criminal activities will always remain. However, if government and municipal officials would simply enforce laws and protect its citizens and not the criminal organizations, Mexico will not have a problem. I find it so absurd and disappointed that government control is hard to acquire. Maybe it's because the government does not have any intentions of curbing violence and corruption?A form of government serving its personal interests rather its constituents?Nevertheless, I hear one excuse after another for probabilities from an inept government. Sorry to say, but truth often hurts sometimes

7:58 government is owned by big bucks, just like drug trafficking.But DRUG TRAFFICKING produces a lot of money, about 90% profit according to some wise asses.government costs a lot of money, too much, and produces mainly treasons and traitors that bite the hand that feeds them.

Thanks Otis for reminding folks of history.I agree, legalization would be a step but I doubt the Medusa head will be ever be totally cut off.........Organized Crime plus Govt complicity ? that is a nightmare with too many tentacles.........no pun intended.

Otis, we in Mexico know how U.S is the top mafia lord of the world, let me tell you this: drug traffic and addictions is not a big problem, that is happening since 1000 years or more, how ever the main problem in wars is interventions, drug cartels were operating very smooth until recently 1990s, so there is plenty evidence even in wikileaks that u.s agencies intervention in the world is very dangerous, evidence says cia and washingtob control the world, by nato, UN, central banks, world banks etc. In Mexico washington anc cia or better said the deepstate wanted to control all drug business by monopoly, they wanted to have just a big cartel, and remember Mexico is moved by washington, no wonder the war was just against zetas, cia wanted to protect cds. Washington read and play the playbook of syria, the so called low intensity war was put in Mexico, same like syria: by arming rebelds they will destroy the enemy, by arming cds they will destroy zetas, no wonder Mexican marines just fought the zetas, while policia federal worked for zetas. Hence U.S as always is meddled in drug business.

4:12 by your logic I deduce you are trying my patience, The american businessmen that were nazi sympathizers and helped hitler's finances even during the war, also tried to get rid of FDR, among them Henry Ford and Prescott Bush, and aviator Charles Lindbergh.--These days american traitors go for deals with russian oligarchs while mexican pendejos and american exceptionalists defend their every pendejada to the full bush.You don't have to defend all of your beloved america because one or two americans make pendejadas all the time.

1:45 I suspect your ass is burning, stop eating those hot peppers, and leave La Chivis and Otis alone.Have you seen FOX NEWS CHANNEL hosts saying "the deception is mindbogling"? Hope the replacement t president makes you feel better, but he also has a lot of baggage, from cover-ups to being the crown queen of indiana's KuKluxKlan covens, Timothy McVeigh should be so proud, he did some college there

Excellent indepth article along with interviews of relatives.It's good this is published outside of Mexico.Puts pressure on Mexico to 'do the right thing'.DD just wondering if you and Chivis have ever met since you share the same state?

Great post DD! Nuestra pobre coahuila. We know it is even worse than testimony presented, and I wish I could be even more specific of what I know, first hand. People say I should not say as much as I do. Another aspect of the story is the people. The good people, blinded and deaf, by fear, to what occurs in front of them.

Big rewards offered for capos and leaders of the last letter, yet no one dare say a word. it isn't as tho they were hiding...right? Tuesday mornings at the same Nava coffee shop..hiding in plain sight.

I myself never passed on what I was told. Only once. To you. When I was told where Z40 was, he changed logistics after Lazca was killed. In sabinas. I was told, and shared that with you because of your proximity at the time.

Where would the gov and people in Mexico be if the US didn't do the intelligence work, donate the equipment, and provide the training? It's not our fault the police, military are afraid to use them. It's not our fault the Mexican officials take bribes instead of action! How dare u post the bias articles that u do.

4:18 usté callese pendejo, the report says very clearly the american side brass of the DEA passed the information to the mexican counterparts, but you refuse to let the FACTS confuse your ass, shut the fack up.

Mexico has and will always suffer because their culture is machismo. I grew up in the RGV and the culture there is more like Mexico than US. I've seen 1st hand the problems with the culture in Mexico and it's too much to write and debate here. And in the end it's a waste of time to even talk about.

One of the reasons the zetas became such ani.as is that they were trained as GAFES with and by Kaibiles from Guatemla's School of the Americas, just on time, they were looking for jobs after Rigoberta Menchú and other activitistas got rough with the guatemalan military, even persecuting their beloved giniral efrain Rios Montt.The zetas were also trained by Mossad "retired agents" ome people say, they needed all that training to murder all the EZLN they could find or create in mexico.

Hey Chivis, if that was the zetas long term plan, how would DD blame the new crimes on the US? "Those damn gas guzzlin SUV drivin, fake Gucci wearin, horny Americans are ruining Mexico!!" Lol, I can hear it now.

Well, the DEA provide the seed, this time, bBecause the CIA decided a while ago to paint the DEA with a wide brush full of shit, after deciding mexico needed a communist problem and then that drug traffickers were a faster money maker for the mexican government and themselves, because money is what it is all about, the US owes it's ass to the chinese this days, thanks to the CIA and their drug trafficking businessmen and banksters associations.

1:01 so what, they did not know the owners were getting executed and these days the criminal politicians, army members, former and present zetas and police still hang around like nothing ever happened, even El Bertie Boy Moeriro is trying to run for public office again and has people pushing his shit for him! Well, that is facked up, they must be looking for an ass kicking

National Geographic is an american corporation, they did the dirty deed of reporting this time, and they are not blaming the US, they even allowed somebody to censure the names of the DEA agents that gave the numbers to their mexican counterparts, and the mexicans' names too.

Beautiful insight and tragic. Nevertheless a country where its government practices are to blame for such atrocities. If government and municipal officials were to do their jobs this would not have transpired. Pointing fingers towards the US for its violence is uncalled for. Most Americans like that of Mexican citizens want no part of it (drug trafficking). However, I do agree that American appetite for narcotics is a demand but not the cause for inept law enforcement efforts.Nevertheless an insight of the tragedies both America and Mexico face. An epidemic of drug abuse and violence.

to Blame the US for mexicos cartel problems is a complete joke...typical bums crying because their own people cant control their own country...the US has a much bigger population with most of the drugs flowing towards the US and yet the crime is nowhere near the levels of mexicos crime...yes chicago is bad but you also have to look at the population compared to the murders...but why is chicago bad? because thats actually the place where the sinaloa cartel unloads the majority of the drugs lol...so of course its gonna be a bad place to be..but thats about as bad as it gets in america...mexico on the other hand HAS to get the political bribes and corruption under control before they can even start to try and clean up the country of mexico..THATS the biggest problem mexico has...the US has nothing to do with people in Mexico who gain high political stature and decide to take money over honor and political correctness...until that is stopped mexico will always be out of control because where are the laws to stop them from doing anything they want?? when a cartel leader has a few politics on his payroll that cartel leader has very few laws that pertain to him..and it leaves the cartel leaders to run wild and do as they please...what does the US have to do with the mexican politics who let the cartels do as they please for an amount of money?? and people will say the cartels wont have money if the US didnt do the drugs lol..well what about the CNGJ making billions in the european market and also making tons of money selling meth to local users?? the problem will never be the consumers...why?? because people consume lol..it isnt complex...what mexico has to do is keep their country in check...but the corruption is just so out of control right now that mexico is pretty much screwed...nobody in mexico wants to stand up and fight these cartels..sure some do..but mexico as a whole does not want to fight these cartels..they would much rather cut a deal to save their own lives and the lives of their family and let the rest of mexico burn to ashes..just as long as they or their family doesnt get harmed...and thats the problem with mexico...its not the US and its not even the cartels themselves..its the people who allow these criminals to run wild with no set of laws for however long they can pay the bribe money...and as long as that is going on and you have people in mexico who would rather blame the US and stand down to these cartels and crooked politicians you will always have the same outcome that has been going on in mexico these last 20 years... so again please dont blame the US...make a stand and fight for your own country or stfu... :)

Totally agree! Mexican government officials have embedded themselves into this mess which unfortunately its citizens are suffering. If rules of laws were applied and enforced Mexican citizens would not have such unlawful behavior from criminals. Moreover, in the US no criminal behavior such as what has been transpiring in Mexicos towns would have transpired. Only law enforcement and its government are to blame.

Seems that you already forgot about "Operation Fast and Furious", when your law enforcement agency knowingly sold firearms to cartel members that ended killing not only innocent Mexican citizens and police officers, but also a BP agent named Brian Terry. Not to even mention your government dirty deals with CDS: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-us-government-and-the-sinaloa-cartel-2014-1

Americans, as always, like to play dumb and innocent when it comes to take responsibility for their actions, they can't never be wrong or evil!

The war in Mexico is bc cia wanted a monopoly or just cds, with a high developed nation like u.s with high technology like nasa, google maps and google earth and fighter jets and drones why are not u.s capable to destroy vast mariguana fields or why u.s is not capable to spot those fields? You know why? Because the deepstate and cia controls any business in Mexico!

7:3p when you pile up your BS with three crimes against humanity some US government hijackets live off from, and try to sweep it all under the rug, and you need a dump truck to do it, maybe it's time to give up, and go bck to your world in the clouds.

Why doesn't DD head on over since he's so close, and give Nat Geo a hand in the investigation. Oh that's right, he's another coward Mexican from that area. Don't wanna upset the local hoodlums.... Lol...

@2:49 You should be careful insulting DD ; insulting one of us is like insulting all of us. And he bothered to post your comment insulting himself.Your time would be better spent contributing something useful.

Muchas Gracias to the rest of you , DD worked very hard on this post !

yeah great work...years to late to be helpful. at the time people only had blogs to tell the world what was happening. I sent information to NYT to a journalist who follows us. I sent the proof he asked for. but at the end he was not allowed to go with the story.

Nat Geo will air their report, the NY Times some times chooses to look the other way, even Assange said only aboUT 1% of their wiki leaks reports ever gets posted on US Media, but some reports get too much propaganda, specially if they are stolen from the Democrat National Council, or private property of others like Carlos Danger, but lawsuits are being worked on and now even the lawyers for the dirty devils have started lawyering themselves. The NYT may have some good taste limits, but remember they participated on the campaigns against Gary Webb and his employer because of NYT corruption and jealousy.Some fights are not for big MSM, b/c of good taste shit.

Chivis, saludos from a son of Cuahilenes. My dad is from La Villa de Fuentes and my Mom is from Colonia Victoria. Although I myself haven't been there in over 20 years (yes, I am afraid) my mom still goes over there on a yearly trek. Her and her friends collect children's clothes and shoes from garage sales and donations, fill up about 300 bags with piñata candy and snickers and drive around Piedras Negras passing em out. Funny, the kids are already expecting "La senora con los dulces gabachos. By and by they leave her alone, however 3 years ago, my lil brother and his family decided to tag along. They got pulled over at a roadblock by Zetas, and since by brothers got that "cholo" look, they pulled them to the side and taxed them 100 bucks. Before they actually taxed him. they asked him if he was looking forward to tucking his kids in that night, so my brother forked over the money. All this even though they knew my mom was "La senora de los dulces gabachos"

Thanks for the articles, I been a fan of BB for over 3 years, and even printing out these articles, my Mom is already planning her next trip for October...

There's an idiot here that writes that the United States should not be blamed. Really? The No. 1 consumer of illegal drugs in the world.That's us. The United States. And the DEA saying that they do not have blood on their hands. Really?As a country, with the voracity of drug consumption, there's plenty of guilty blood to go around.

I find it both funny AND disturbing that very few talk about the act; instead its all about policy and its not my fault its yours blah,blah,blah.now imagine all of u idiots writing this b.s. You're at your desk,or in bed,or on your porch reading this and 10(to be conservative) trucks pull up.armed men jump out ,start kicking in your door,shooting out your windows asking and threatening for who ever.sure all u internet blame gamers wit ur bad asses are gonna grab your aks and tricked out colt ar's(ha ha) and face the threat head on.yeah u might kill two or three (bravo),then the other 24 gunmen kill u or worst yet wound you,detain you kill ur son,and rape then kill your wife,daughters WHOEVER right in front of your face.okay:for those of you a little more reserved, you don't pick up the gun ,you pick up the phone(IMA call the law) and they tell u its nothing they can do.lock the door and hide.those people never thought this could happen just like you don't think it can happen to you now.Mf's got the congregation killed just so they could get the preacher.people knew this was highly possible and used human beings for expendable, collateral damage. its wrong and dishonorable I don't give a damn what side you are on.go blame that.ignorant #%$!.

But here in the US 10:21, gunmen don't ride around in trucks and kick in doors and rape and pillage. Because here in the US there is consequences for things like that. Not to mention the neighbors would be shooting back, not running for the hills. That's y the US runs the region. It's the people who make the country bud. FACTS

3:43 the american "policy" regarding crimes in the sacred american soil of the US of A is different than the "policy" the mexican narco-government is allowed and often required to apply to mexican citizens and mexican criminals, God forbid and they rebel mexican citizens decide and turn into socialist revolutionaries like cuba, comunistas for more than 60 years.

4:49 the mexican government can not impose the death penalty on the worst criminal, because it is THE LAW, boy.Criminals and their allies in government, in mexico OR on the US DO NOT HAVE ANY right or duty to impose their "laws" on amy mexican citizens, specially not even if the US grants them their customary "Sovereign Impunkty"

@ 8:42 , I am from Allende, and what you say is true, we knew who the drug dealers were, I mean the Drug dealers families like Garza, Moreno, La Fuente, Sanchez, Triana, Fernandez, Mares, etc, and we knew that sooner or later they fortunes will be ashes, we have experience that since the 1950s, and we knew that something will happen to them as if we were waiting the punishment for them, but what was surprise for us is the magnitud of the punishment, backdays only the mafia member was killed, now if they don't find the member then they will kill their parents, even if they were not related to the business, ironically the firs zetas that came here in 2003 were acting according the old days, when they killed La fuente they did it profesionally, those were the zetas of of Arturo Guzman Decena then the highest commander of the armed wing of cartel del golfo called Zetas, but after Decena's death Lazcano and 40s assumed leaderchip and everything changed even the dangerous split from Golfo Cartel. Here in Allende there is a population of 40,000 yet what happened to the unfortunates was just to 60 people from Allende's those figures of 300 are not really accurated unless they account the Piedras Negras and Sabinas. Many things are not really accurated in natgeo report, like Treviño's son beat, His son was beaten because he was a boyfriend of Garza's and he left her. Other people who knew Moreno knew that he was jailed in United States before the zetas came here, then after he was released he got out as informant for dea, etc.